“Another senior scientist, aware of the planned announcement, said staff would be shocked by the news that basic climate science, including much of the monitoring of changes in the southern hemisphere, would be slashed…”

I could spend this post fulminating about the short-sighted nature of the cuts, and the damage being done to Australian science. But I think we need to pay attention to the long term pattern such cuts illustrate.

Graham Readfearn over at The Guardian has done an excellent article on some of the background of the cuts, and the worrying language of the new head of CSIRO:

“This week’s announcement by CSIRO executive director Larry Marshall has angered many in the country’s climate science community, who have been queuing up to criticise the moves.

But beyond the implications of the announcement, there has also been much bemusement about Marshall’s statements and his apparent simplistic understanding of aspects of climate science…

…In one of his first interviews, Marshall appeared to be intrigued by water dowsing – the ancient idea that farmers could use sticks together with a mysterious unidentified perception to find water under the soil.”

Well worth a read.

My own observation is that these cuts fit into a longer term pattern or trend: namely the ‘war on science” conducted by ultra-conservatives and the right.

“The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Research is forced to shut its doors after repeated requests for renewed funding fall on deaf ears. The foundation had offered about $120 million in university grants for climate and weather-related research over about 10 years. The total is above the $110 million multi-year grant it received from the government.

The foundation would later rebrand itself as the Canadian Climate Forum, relying on private donors to fund its work.

A labour union representing federal scientists, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, would also estimate that the Canadian government was in the middle of a three-year purge, cutting nearly $3 billion in spending and up to 5,000 jobs from its science-based departments, including many scientific research positions and programs in charge of monitoring air, water, and wildlife…”

Despite Prime Minister Turnball’s public acceptance of the science, his government is following the same path laid out at the start of the LNP’s term. The LNP’s broad, anti-science agenda has not changed.

We may have changed Prime Ministers to one who speaks of “innovation” and “agility”, but in reality its the same old culture war: facts versus values and world view.

Australia was a leader in an important field of scientific research. Following these cuts, no more.

We have effectively hampered the ability to adapt to the changing climate in these cuts.

Even though we are only a little way into the 21st century, the signs of global warming are obvious and many. There are droughts in East Africa, stranded polar bears in the Arctic, bleached coral reefs in the tropics, and retreating glaciers on land.

But the latest sign was a real surprise to me. By burning huge quantities of fossil fuels, we humans have actually tipped the Earth off its axis — by a tiny amount.

When I say “tiny”, let me emphasise how tiny. It’s centimetres per year, not hundreds or thousands of kilometres each year….

….rapid melting of ice on land has driven Earth’s North Pole to the east. This solid ice used to be on land, but is now liquid water spread everywhere across the planet.

The burning of fossil fuels by us these past few centuries has been sufficient to shift the Earth’s axis.